BY ERASMO GUERRA
Wednesday, November 4th 2009, 4:00 AM
“Precious” cast mates (clockwise from l.) Chyna Lane, Gabourey Sidibe, Stephanie Andujar and Amina Robinson. Stephanie Andujar, a young Puerto Rican actress, was soaked from the October rain when she arrived at the audition for the film “Precious.” Halfway through her reading, director Lee Daniels yelled, “Stop!” Crushed that he’d made his decision so quickly, she didn’t expect him to follow up with, “I want you in my movie.”
That was how, two years ago, Andujar, 23, landed the role of Rita Romero, a 16-year-old former heroin addict and prostitute, who attends an alternative school in Harlem and befriends Clareece (Precious) Jones, an overweight, illiterate teenager, pregnant with her second child by her abusive father.
The explosive, disturbing, but ultimately hopeful story, which hits theaters Friday, has been winning awards at film fests across the country and generating buzz for its stars, MoNique, Mariah Carey and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title character.
Rita Romero might strike many as just another tragic Latina stereotype, but on a recent walk through her Chelsea neighborhood, Andujar insisted she didn’t find the role demeaning. “I’m making movies that reflect realities,” she said, explaining that she has known friends and family who’ve suffered similar circumstances. And yet with the unmistakable glow of her youth, and dimpled-cheek sweetness, Andujar is very much the girl who made her first Communion and Confirmation at St. Columba Catholic Church, who likes the lattes from Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts when I’m trying to save money.”
Guys from the neighborhood greet her by name when she walks past. Others suck their teeth and call out, in a practiced stage whisper, that she’s gorgeous. But life hasn’t always been pretty. Andujar spent the latter part of her childhood in the Chelsea-Elliott Houses, where she endured the hard luck of being the new girl on the block. “Girls were always clawing at my sister and me because we hadn’t grown up here,” she said. Her father was a heroin addict who was jailed when she was 11, released when she was 17 and then sent back behind bars when he violated his parole.
Andujar started acting at the age of 12, when her mother, Carmen, enrolled her at a Beacon after-school arts program to keep her out of trouble. “When you’re young, you want to come home, watch TV and eat,” Andujar said, but the program put her on a new path. “It’s where I learned what a monologue was.”
At 13, she got a taste of the stage when she landed the part of the Scarecrow in the musical “The Wiz.” A talent agent noticed Andujar, signed her up and has been mentoring her since. Andujar continued with high school at Talent Unlimited. She went to one casting call after another, but other than school productions, she conceded, “I never really booked anything.” She was pursuing Plan B, a business degree in hotel management from Pace University, and was working at a Marriott hotel in Manhattan when she got a guest role on “Law & Order” as a pregnant prostitute.
Soon after, she earned the role of Rita in “Precious.” Andujar grew out her eyebrows and, as instructed, watched “Paris Is Burning,” a documentary on the Harlem drag-ball scene, to get a sense of the grittiness of New York in the ’80s.
For the shoot, Andujar’s teeth were stained, to suggest Rita’s raggedness, so getting into character “made me sad but also happy.” Andujar’s own life is a complicated tumble of emotions. In January, her father, who cleaned up after his last prison stint, died from colon cancer at age 48. He never got to see her in the film, but, she recalled, “He got to see me in one high school production and was all teary-eyed.”
erasmoguerrajr@gmail.com
